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This week on the Big Show, we start in frigid Minnesota, home of one James Lileks, who describes life in a Polar Vortex for those of us who live in more temperate climes. Then, we’re off to the swamps of Jersey for a visit from Commentary’s Noah Rothman to talk about his fascinating new book Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America. Then, it’s off to Venezuela where Annika Rothstein is on the ground in Caracas reporting on the collapse of a revolution. Finally, we end up back in the good old U.S. of A for some Super Bowl picks from the hosts. Who ya got?
Music from this week’s podcast: Not as Much as Football by Mojo Nixon
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Of course this is spot on. Naturally it is.
Trump is a bloviating, unqualified creep — his presidency an improbable, cosmic joke played upon the polity and the world — but the only reason he won the GOP nomination in the first place (instead of an anodyne Dole, Romney or Bush I or II-type) is because from roughly 2005 to 2016, a huge portion of the country was the recipient of a constant stream of insane tribalist vitriol along the lines of “Step aside, Racist Cisgendered White Man — your time is over!!! In fact, we can’t wait for you to die!!!”
You cannot spout that kind of hateful tribal insanity for a full decade or more and not expect an equal and opposite, Newtonian reaction to it.
And the other side of that particular Newtonian equation … is Donald Trump.
I didn’t support him for the nomination. Didn’t vote for him in the general. And will not be voting for him in 2020.
Make no mistake: I have no love for the man.
But it’s no mystery how he got here.
link
Be sure to vote! Your vote matters!
There are reasons for populism and socialism being such an issue right now. I was blown away by how many smart Republicans when all in for Trump from the get-go. Again, there are reasons for this.
Also the RNC had to come up with a better plan for a 17 man primary. They didn’t. It is what it is.
Nope. This is what we really have to worry about:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/psdt_1-17-19_generations-00/
Only this. The cultural stuff.
The rest of it? The wonky stuff? Meaningless. Beyond meaningless. Stupid.
But Conservatives refuse to face this reality.
All I’m saying is, when has anyone in power actually been conservative? It’s a joke. Some conservatives whine about Trump, but if they had actually been conservative, populism wouldn’t be an issue right now.
Plus, can we please finish a war once and a while?
The alt-right didn’t come from Trump.
I realize that no one cares, but this and this is the root of the problem for conservatives and libertarians. None of that stuff can work or sell until they overhaul the financial system and the Fed. No one is going to do jack about it.
Got it. Chalk up another vote for (or a vote not cancelled out for) President Hillary in 2016, and President Kamala or whatever in 2020.
One of the podcasts here pointed out that Harvard, to get its racial numbers up, admits the sons (and daughters) of plantation owners from Ghana and high government officials from Argentina.
Thomas Sowell pointed out years ago that second-generation West Indian immigrants (Colin Powell, Kamala Harris?) are indistinguishable from whites in terms of socioeconomic status. Even as, in appearance, they are indistinguishable from descendants of American freedmen: so if the latter don’t do as well as they do, the explanation cannot be racism.
Obama, by contrast, was quite possibly descended from slave traders and/or slave owners on both sides.
Yep. Ironic, no?
This is a great discussion.
Imagine a foreigner attending his first baseball game in New York in the 1930’s, and commenting that the big fat old guy with the number 3 on his back, mincing around the base paths, can’t be much of an athlete.
It always makes me laugh, when Never Trumpers and anti-Trumpers talk about how dim and unqualified Trump is, and that he overcame 17 Republicans, plus Hillary Clinton, plus her tame eggheads, plus the entire Democratic Party, plus the media, due to a “cosmic joke“.
It’s reminiscent of the way Democrats used to speak of Ronald Reagan’s “Irish luck“.
The Founders never, ever expected the media to be what it is today.
Not so sure about that. Ever read what they were like around that time? Today’s press is an improvement.
Uh huh. And is it so hard to imagine a Leftist telling a disgruntled Progressive who refuses to pull the lever for whoever the Democrats nominate next year: “Got it. Chalk up another vote for (or a vote not cancelled out for) Donald Trump in 2016, and President Trump in 2020“?
The only intellectually honest answer to that question is, “No, it is not.”
Reality is irrelevant. The race/racism hustlers claim that privileged children like Obama’s should still get preferential treatment over poor white Appalachians etc.
Were they an arm of just one party? The right is very outnumbered in this sense.
The Jill Stein vote seemed to be those who didn’t think Hillary was leftist ENOUGH. What evidence is there that anyone on the Left – certainly any significant number – stayed home or maybe eveen voted for Trump because they felt Hillary was just too disgusting? (Especially considering that Hillary won the popular vote. Thanks to you, and Jonah Goldberg, and others.) That seems like something only self-congratulating “conservatives” do.
The press back then didn’t pretend to be objective.
Exactly. You knew if you were reading a particular newspaper that it had a particular bias. The attempt to be neutral has encouraged ever more extreme leftism. Leftists never admit to anyone that they are leftists. Most importantly, they don’t admit it to themselves.
Leftists are totally and completely convinced of their impartiality and fairness and rightwingers understand that they are humans who lean right.
The Annika interview was outstanding. She is a great example of true journalism. Good luck to her and I hope there are further updates.
What you fail to understand is that mentioning me in the same sentence as Jonah Goldberg is an enormous complement. (The opposite of, say, a mention in the same sentence as Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O’Donnell, Keith Olberman, Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Bill O’Reilley, Samantha Bee, Seth Myers, Bill Hannity, and other insufferable jerks).
This week specifically in regard to Noah Rothman, but overall in general too, can’t you guys find one guest who is “known” in the media – and thus might be trying to avoid ridicule or other exposure – who is willing to aver, or avow, or whatever, that voting for Trump in 2020 might be at least Tolerable, if not Acceptable or even A Good Thing, considering that his opponent will be someone like Harris, or even Joe Biden, NONE of whom would do ANYTHING that you like and will certainly do MANY things that you DON’T LIKE? Is it so important to you – and to them – to not have a president who is “Loathsome,” that you’re willing – even prepared and perhaps eager – to lose to someone who might want “4th trimester abortion” and the like, nationwide even worldwide? That alone seems pretty Loathsome to me.
So, Jonah can’t ever be wrong? Or he’s just never wrong about anything you agree with him about?
Actually I’m pretty sure Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Keith Olbermann, Samantha Bee, and many others agree with you – and Jonah – about how “loathsome” Trump is. That’s not the kind of company I would want to keep. Perhaps it’s an indication that you – and Jonah – should re-evaluate your positions.
I almost promised myself I would never comment to you again. But this is too good past up.
Just because some insufferable jerk might think the same thing I do on one particular thing does not make me wrong. Or him any less an insufferable jerk. Who knows, I might even agree with you someday on something.
The point, of course, was @filmklassik agreeing with cultured, refined, and whatever else, Jonah Goldberg, about the awfulness of Trump, unlike those uncouth and also loathsome insufferable jerks and whatever curs like Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O’Donnell, Keith Olbermann, Samantha Bee, Seth Myers and etc., who…. have the same opinion about Trump.
The left – and you, and @filmklassik, and Jonah, and whoever else – don’t get to claim ethereal virtue because you’re against Trump, unlike those hood-wearing klan people that Trump just winks at and which other Trump supporters must somehow be in cahoots with because they still voted for Trump even though Trump and SOME of his supporters are so awful, when your own faction has plenty of slime to deal with too. It goes both ways.
“Cultured, refined, whatever else”
“Ethereal virtue.” Good lord. Reminds me of phrases like, “‘S’matter — ya think yer better than us or somethin’??” Along similar lines, I lost all respect for Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College (someone I once respected a great deal) when he began waxing rhapsodic about populism and trashing “fancy pants” (his phrase) thinkers who oppose it. And all to justify his support for Donald Trump. It was straight out of the Huey Long/William Jennings Bryan playbook, and it turned my stomach.
That’s as may be. But the larger point is, if Trump supporters are expected to renounce their support or at least distance themselves from it or whatever, because (some) white supremacists are also Trump supporters, then it’s only turnabout-is-fair-play to insist that you and other Trump-critics renounce that position because a far greater number of fellow Trump critics also appear to support anti-Semitism, 4th-trimester abortion etc.
Abbreviated version: don’t dish it out if you can’t take it. Or, they’re-rubber-you’re-glue, what you say bounces off them and sticks to you.
Look, take the white supremacists out of the equation, okay? Let’s just pretend for a minute that they don’t exist.
Got the scenario? For the next 60 seconds, they don’t exist.
Okay, with that in mind, Trump is still an insufferable, bloviating, unqualified poser who doesn’t belong within a hundred miles of the Oval Office.
@filmklassik What should be done?
And, oddly, still the best President we’ve had in the last thirty years.